


Love's Old, Sweet Song

by Archer973



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Gen, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archer973/pseuds/Archer973
Summary: “Grace! Grace, darling, give us a song, will ya?”“It's not Saturday, Arthur,” Grace replied primly, picking up another another glass and emptying its contents into the bucket at her feet. Arthur scoffed, just as she had known he would, and Grace had to press her lips together to stop a laugh from escaping at his petulance. She made to turn her head, but her gaze caught, as it so often did these days, on Thomas Shelby.Or, Arthur wants Grace to sing to them and he suggest a sweet song to melt his brother's heart.
Relationships: Grace Burgess & Arthur Shelby, Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	Love's Old, Sweet Song

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, new fandom! I have just finished season one of Peaky Blinders and so of course have to write something for Tommy and Grace, who are hands down my favorite part of the show so far. This is just something short and sweet, and set nebulously in the months that Grace worked in the bar after Arthur took over management, but before the reveal of who she was working for. Hope y'all enjoy!

The slurring, stumbling patrons of the Garrison had long since stumbled home, leaving only Grace and the Shelby men behind. It had become a bit of a habit these last few weeks for the brothers to settle into the booth in the corner of the bar after the doors were locked and keep her company as she cleaned. Or maybe she kept them company. It was hard to tell sometimes, where the line was.

Especially on nights like these.

“Grace! Grace, darling, give us a song, will ya?” Grace couldn't stop herself from smiling slightly at Arthur, his slurred voice booming across the room as he beckoned to her. She had not liked the eldest Shelby brother much in the beginning, but after he took over the bar, a certain fondness had started to grow in her heart for the fragile, broken man trying so desperately to keep his head above water.

“It's not Saturday, Arthur,” she replied primly, picking up another another glass and emptying its contents into the bucket at her feet. Arthur scoffed, just as she had known he would, and Grace had to press her lips together to stop a laugh from escaping at his petulance. She made to turn her head, but her gaze caught, as it so often did these days, on Thomas Shelby.

Seated to his brother's right, Tommy was the picture of calm, a granite statue to his two brothers' swaying, whiskey-soaked forms. But Grace could see, even from across the room, the softness around his eyes. The tension that usually held his shoulders so tight and stiff had shifted into something calmer, more at ease. There was no one to pretend for here. It was just his brothers.

And Grace.

“It's my bleedin' bar, and if I want my barmaid to sing to me she bloody well can!” Arthur proclaimed, surging to his feet and almost falling over again, saved only by his position of being pinned between John and Tommy, both of whom reached up a hand to steady their brother. “C'mon, darling! Sing us something sweet, to melt my brother's stony heart.”

“Oh, very well,” Grace relented, sighing as if put upon even as she smiled at the trio as she came around the bar and made her way across the pub to their table. “But don't you go falling in love with me, Arthur Shelby!”

“Too late for that, darling,” Arthur replied cheekily, winking at her as he flopped back down into his seat. Grace shook her head at him, but her smile belayed any ire in the gesture, and Arthur blew her a kiss in response.

Rolling her eyes to herself at the foolishness of men, Grace pulled a chair out from one of the other tables and hopped up onto it with the ease of long practice. Arthur and John cheered as she did, but when she turned to face the trio once more, it was to Tommy that her eyes fell.

The light from the oil lamps left burning cast his face in gold, softening the harsh edges he carried in the day and turning them instead to sweeping lines Grace longed to trace her fingers over. Clasping her hands together lest they betray her, Grace let herself smile slightly at him. Tommy smiled back, the slightest quirking of lips that she would have missed if she had not known to look for it, and the warmth that always sat in her chest at his presence curled outwards, filling her like the warmth of tea on a cold day.

“ _Once in the dear dead days beyond recall_ ,” Grace began, her voice pitched low and lilting, her accent curling around the words and spinning them into the air as if giving them wings. “ _When on the world the mists began to fall..._

 _Out of the dreams that rose in happy throng  
Low to our hearts love sang an old sweet song  
And in the dusk where fell the firelight gleam  
Softly it wove itself into our dream._”

The shadows of the Garrison were soft now, insulating the trio and their singer from the rest of the world. Arthur's arm was slung around John's shoulders and he hugged his younger brother close, the other man leaning into him almost gratefully as Grace's voice filled the air. These men were of Roma stock. They knew the power of a woman's voice lifted in song.

“ _Just a song at twilight_ ,” Grace crooned, “ _When the lights are low_...

 _And the flickering shadows  
Softly come and go.  
Though the heart be weary,  
Sad the day and long,  
Still to us at twilight comes love's old, sweet song_.”

Tommy's posture did not change, but his eyes... Like the night she had warned him of his broken heart, Grace could not look away from those deep, beckoning pools, where power and brokenness danced hand in hand for her to see. With every word she sung spilling into the night air, she felt herself falling deeper and deeper into his gaze, and the thrill of stirred something deep within her core.

“ _Even today we hear love's song of yore  
Deep in our hearts it dwells forever more  
Footsteps may falter, weary grows our way  
Still we can hear it at the close of day  
So till the end when life's dim shadows fall  
Love will be found the sweetest song of all_.”

The smile was not just a shadow anymore, but something soft and warm curling up the corners of his lips. The tension in his frame had melted away, no match for the warmth of Grace's voice. Tommy looked up at her, and Grace's heart could not help but stutter with what she beheld in his winter blue eyes.

“ _Just a song at twilight  
When the lights are low,  
And the flickering shadows  
Softly come and go_

 _Though the heart be weary,_  
Sad the day and long,  
Still to us at twilight comes love's old... sweet... song...”

Grace's voice trailed off, the last notes lingering in the air between the singer and her audience, caressing the warmth she had brought to life in that shadowed pub before fading away and leaving only silence behind.

Grace knew she should get down from the chair, but Tommy's gaze had her pinned in place. Her skin prickled under the intensity of it and the breath caught in her chest. She felt stripped bare, all walls and pretenses pulled down before this domineering man's eyes. But she was not afraid, for she saw her own vulnerability reflected back. There was pain there, and sorrow, but happiness too. And something else. Something more...

“Beautiful,” Arthur croaked, shattering the stillness that had invaded the pub after Grace's voice had faded away. “Just... absolutely fuckin' beautiful...”

The tether between Grace and Tommy broke at Arthur's voice, allowing Grace to hop down off the chair and bow her head in thanks at Arthur and John's compliments. But the weight of Tommy's eyes never left her and Grace felt a shiver run down her spine that had absolutely nothing to do with fear.

“Let me get you boys another drink,” she offered hastily, turning before they could even agree and hurrying back towards the bar. Grace made a great show of pulling down clean glasses and sifting through their bottles of whiskey, but when she heard the footsteps, she was not surprised to see the lean, wiry frame of Thomas Shelby when she turned.

Silence hung for several long moments between them, both wanting to speak, but neither knowing quite what to say.

“The song was lovely,” Tommy finally said, just when Grace thought for sure she would shatter from the tension thrumming between them. “I can see why the men flock here on Saturday nights.”

“Are you glad I added the singing to our deal, then?” Grace asked lightly, her hand resting upon a whiskey bottle but making no move to pull it out and move away from him.

“Yes,” Tommy replied immediately, the acknowledgment simple, though the emotions in his eyes were anything but. Grace could feel her cheeks starting to warm under that heavy gaze, but she had no desire to look away, nor move from their compromisingly close position facing each other.

“Though,” Tommy added, his lips curling into a smile that allowed just the hint of teeth to flash through at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that made Grace's heart jump in a way she had not felt since she was a school girl. “I'm not sure if I want you singing that song again.”

“Oh?” Grace asked, arching her eyebrow at him. “And why not?” Tommy looked at her for a moment, then leaned in. Grace's breath caught in her chest. He wasn't trapping her, she could turn away with the easiest motion, but she felt pinned in place, held there by the weight of his eyes and the warmth radiating off his body, enticing her closer.

“Because,” he replied, voice as level as ever even as Grace watched the heat curl in his eyes as he held her gaze. “I don't want anyone else falling in love with you.”

Grace's heart stuttered and her hand on the whiskey bottle tightened as if it was the one solid thing she had left to hold onto.

“Anyone _else_?” she repeated, quirking an eyebrow in question, and was pleased with how steady her voice sounded, even if her pulse was not following suit. Tommy nodded, and his eyes flicked down to her lips, then back up again. It was so fast that if Grace had not been so focused on him she would have missed it, but there was no denying it happened, and they both knew it.

“Well,” Tommy murmured, holding her gaze as a grin slowly started to spread across his face, “you've already entranced Arthur, haven't you?” Grace looked at him, thrown by the sudden change in conversation.

Then she started to giggle.

Grace tried to tamp the laughter down, but the more that slipped out, the wider Tommy's grin got, and finally she could no longer contain herself, peals of laughter ringing from her chest and mingling with Tommy's own soft chuckles, a sound she had never heard before and one that instantly made her entire chest fill with joy.

“I'm pretty sure it was my math skills that wooed him, not my singing,” she countered, not even trying to contain her smile now. “Get him an abacus and he'll be just as happy.”

Tommy chuckled, his eyes crinkling up with his smile, and Grace was struck by how _young_ he looked. The weight in his eyes was gone, the lines of weariness smoothed out. She forgot that he was only a few years older than she herself, for the war had carved years into his face that should not have been there. But in this moment she could see the young man he had been, the one the war had killed. And she wanted nothing more than to pull him into her arms and hold him until all of his broken pieces merged with hers and they found the healing so long denied to them.

Her heart must have shown on her face, for Tommy's eyes went soft and he reached up, tracing the edge of her cheek gently with a single calloused finger.

“It would have to be a very beautiful abacus,” he murmured, holding Grace's gaze even as he leaned towards her, close enough now that Grace could feel his breath on her cheek. Never looking away, Grace lifted her chin every so slightly, a challenge and an invitation in one, and Tommy's lips quirked up in a grin just as...

Smashing wood jerked them apart, Tommy's hand flying to where his revolver hung perpetually at his side as they both searched frantically for the source of the noise. It was not hard to find, however, for there were only two other occupants of the bar and Arthur Shelby had always been a imposingly tall man.

He was not imposing now, however, but sheepish as he struggled to pick John up off the floor without losing his own balance. Tommy let out an exasperated sigh and Grace had to bring a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“Sorry,” Arthur mumbled, glancing up at the pair of them dolefully as he tugged on John's inebriated form fruitlessly. “Drink finally got to him. I'll get 'im back ho – ” Arthur broke off, staggering, and Tommy rolled his eyes, shoving his half-drawn gun back into its holster and glancing at Grace ruefully.

“I should get John home,” he said, his voice almost apologetic. “If I let Arthur do it they'll both end up in a ditch somewhere. Assuming they can even get out the door, that is.” Grace nodded, pursing her lips in an attempt to stop the smile that exasperated-big-brother Thomas Shelby invoked, for even though he had been born in the middle of the pack, there was never any question of who looked after all of the other Shelby siblings.

“Wouldn't do for everyone to see the Shelby boys in the scummer come morning, I suppose,” she replied, letting herself grin at him.

Tommy looked at her for a moment, then grinned back, shaking his head. “No, no it wouldn't.”

Grace nodded again, making to turn away from him and let him get on with his family business, but a warm hand on her arm stopped her. Grace turned back to him, surprised, and then a pair of warm, slightly chapped lips were pressing against her cheek. The contact didn't last long, but by the time Tommy pulled away, Grace's heart was racing like one of his prized Thoroughbreds. She looked up at him, and his blue-grey eyes were heavy with everything he could not say.

“Thank you,” he murmured instead, hand sliding down her arm so that he could tangle his fingers briefly with hers. “For the song.” And then before Grace could even wet her lips to reply, Tommy was gone, striding over to his inebriated brothers and hoisting John up with a strength hidden by his wiry build. He gave her one last look as he waited for Arthur to push open the door, and then he was gone, carrying his brother into the night.

Grace watched him go, allowing herself a moment to feel the pounding in her chest and fluttering in her stomach. Then she turned and began once more to clean glasses off of the bar top, wiping the shimmering metal down with her trusty rag. She was a barmaid, after all, and had a job to do, kiss or no kiss.

Well... _almost_ kiss. And technically she had kissed Tommy before, or been kissed by him, as the case may be. So really her heart had no business fluttering and thumping the way that it was.

Grace registered Arthur's return to the bar, but she paid him no real mind, focusing instead on cleaning up the remnants of that night's business and getting things ready for the next night's opening. Arthur, however, had different plans.

Coming up beside her, Arthur took Grace's hand firmly in his own and dipped down to pressed a dry kiss the soft skin of her knuckles. Grace turned and raised an eyebrow at the older man. “And what exactly was that for?”

“Tonight, for the first time in almost three years, my brother laughed.” Arthur's voice was rough, but his hold on Grace's hand was gentle and when she looked up at him, his eyes – Shelby eyes – were saturated with emotions that instantly brought a lump to Grace's throat. “He laughed, an' smiled, an' sat easy in his seat. An' it was 'cos of you, Grace. Thank you.”

Grace swallowed thickly, then nodded slightly, squeezing his fingers with her own. “It was my pleasure. He... he has a beautiful laugh.”

“Aye, he does,” Arthur agreed, a grin stretching across his face and reminding Grace that Tommy was not the only Shelby man aged by war. “Now hurry up and fuck 'im before the twenty-fifth or I lose ten quid to Polly.”

Grace gaped at the man, and then, uncaring of the fact that he was eldest brother of the most dangerous family in Birmingham, she smacked him violently on the arm with her bar rag. “Arthur Shelby, you – !”

“Ah ah ah, love,” Arthur interrupted, grabbing her other hand to stop her assault and grinning down at her, completely unfazed by her attack. “Shelby prerogative. You just have to indulge us.”

“I indulge you too much already, you rapscallion!” Grace countered, though she was fighting a smile. It was hard to stay mad at the man, especially when he was grinning at her like that, like her brother used to when he got her all riled up. “Now go sleep off that whiskey before I decide the account books need balancing again.” Arthur winced, the chuckled, squeezing her hands gently.

“You really know how to hit a man where it hurts,” he replied, grinning down at her. Then his face softened and, before Grace even realized what was happening, he pulled her into a hug. “You've been a blessing to us, Grace. Tommy the most, but me as well. I hope to be able to call you sister one day.”

Grace stood stiffly, the lump in her throat growing, but she made no move to pull away. “You're drunk, Arthur.”

“I'm always drunk,” the eldest Shelby countered, pulling back just enough so that he could look down at her, his face serious. “Doesn't change what I said. Life's short, Grace. Take happiness where you can find it.”

Grace looked up at him, and Arthur looked back with heavy eyes. Years of pain lived there, and knowledge, and regret. It made Grace's heart ache and she lifted her arms hesitantly, letting them wrap around Arthur squeeze him gently.

“Got ten quid riding on that too?” she asked softly, giving him a small smile, and Arthur returned it tenfold, laughing and hugging her close once again.

“Nah,” he replied, pressing a brotherly kiss to her forehead, then squeezing her gently. “Got twenty.”

**Author's Note:**

> The song Grace sings is an Irish ballad called "Love's Old Sweet Song" (hence the title of the fic), which was published in 1884 by composer James Lynam Molloy and lyricist G. Clifton Bingham.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed the fic! I just wanted some more of Grace singing to Tommy, and singing a love song in particular. Also, I have a fondness for the platonic interactions between Arthur and Grace, so I threw some of that in there at the end as well. I know this show is angsty, but that is why we have fic, for the fluff. I would love to hear what y'all thought, especially what with this being my first ever fic for this fandom, and thank you so much for reading! Cheers!


End file.
